Record-setting outside money pouring into California governor’s race
Companies, labor unions, tech giants, Native American tribes and other special interests donated a record-breaking $79.6 million to independent committees focused on influencing the volatile California governor’s race ahead of the June 2 primary.
Many of these committees’ biggest supporters will have significant business interests ahead of the state’s next governor and state agencies, hoping to either empower a candidate who aligns with their political priorities or undermine those who oppose them.
“First time seeing IEs [or independent expenditures] “This has that kind of impact on a governor’s race,” said Martin Wilson, a veteran GOP strategist who has worked on every California gubernatorial contest since 1978 and on an outside effort supporting San José Mayor Matt Mahan’s 2026 bid for governor.
Election laws prohibit independent expenditure committees from communicating or coordinating with campaigns, allowing candidates to emphasize that they have no control over the money flowing to these outside groups. The wall between the two has long been thought to be performance-based and surmountable.
The biggest chunk of outside spending has been directed to attacking the billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior Tom Steyer, one of the leading Democrats in the race.
About $32.3 million was donated Monday to oppose his nomination, according to the California Target Book, a nonpartisan political almanac that tracks independent spending committees. Major donors include utility giant PG&E, a political action committee sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Assn. The Realtors’ independent expenditure committee, which brings together utilities, business, property tax and construction issues affected by lawmakers and regulators in the state capital.
Independent spending supporting Steyer’s bid for governor was minuscule compared to the record-breaking $212 million Steyer donated to his own campaign on Monday, according to the California secretary of state’s office. Yet more than $1.4 million was spent outside to support his bid; Much of that money went to the California Nurses Assn., which shares the goal of creating single-payer health care. was spent by.
Expenditure committees affiliated with Uber, the California Medical Assn., kidney dialysis company DaVita and the California Dental Assn. He contributed nearly $7.3 million to independent efforts supporting former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) before withdrawing from the governor’s race in April amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.
Recent polls show several of those donors uniting behind former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra, who later struggled to connect with California voters before emerging as the front-runner. More than $13 million has been donated to outside groups supporting the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary.
Outside money has led to flashpoints in the race. Steyer points to companies backing Becerra, such as a $500,000 Chevron donation to a group supporting him that was reported to state election officials on Thursday.
“Until the last half-million-dollar infusion from Chevron, the Becerra campaign was running out of gas,” Steyer spokesman Anthony York said.
The message reflects Steyer’s theme throughout the campaign; Candidates need to be evaluated based on who supports them and who is against them.
Becerra accused Steyer of misleading voters because $500,000 from Chevron went to an independent spending committee that supported him, over which he had no control. However, Becerra received a direct contribution of $39,200 from the oil company to his campaign committee in June 2025.
“To say I got it [$500,000] …this is an outright lie,” he said in a television interview this weekend: “It pains me to see candidates for office believe that they must be tempted to lie in order to gain favor with voters. “If that’s what you did as a candidate, what will you do when you take office?”
Steyer’s campaign, which used Memorial Day weekend to attack Becerra with billboards highlighting high gas prices in Los Angeles and Fresno, said it was disingenuous for Becerra to pretend to be ignorant about how the political system works.
“Chevron is charging Californians record gas prices while also coming back to spend $500,000 to elect Xavier Becerra,” Steyer spokeswoman Danni Wang said. “Becerra is now trying to do semantic gymnastics to argue that voters are too stupid to understand how dark money works in politics. Californians aren’t buying it.”
Becerra’s campaign argued that such comments were the height of hypocrisy from a billionaire whose campaign was financed by profits from a hedge fund that made investments that many voters opposed. Becerra said he constantly dealt with oil companies while serving as California’s attorney general.
“Tom Steyer made his billions of dollars from fossil fuels and private prisons, then decided that made him eligible to run California,” Becerra spokesman Jonathan Underland said. “Now he’s holding Big Oil’s feet to the fire in this race and attacking the only candidate who beat him. [President] 100 times Trump’s [state attorney general]. The irony would be funny if Tom’s checkbook wasn’t so thick.”
Mahan, a moderate Democrat, earned $21.7 million from spending by outside groups supporting him, while $570,000 was spent by independent committees opposing him, according to Target Book. Donors backing his bid include Silicon Valley luminaries, including venture capitalists Michael Moritz and L. John Doerr, Stripe Chief Executive Officer Patrick Collinson and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla. Other major donors include billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso, who is running for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022, as well as Griff Harsh V, son of billionaire Meg Whitman, a Democrat who was the GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2010 and once ran EBay.
Despite this generous support, Mahan remains in single digits in the polls. On Wednesday, billionaire Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings took back $1 million he donated to one of the independent spending committees that supported Mahan’s bid.
Hastings said he did not request the money be returned to him.
“I’m voting for Matt Mahan. I didn’t ask for any refunds and they shouldn’t have done that,” he posted on X on Saturday. “Go Matt.”
Matt Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Back to Basics committee that supports Mahan, said he believes Mahan’s stance in the race reflects a number of factors: the lackluster run of the contest, Mahan’s entry into the contest in January and his lack of statewide recognition.
“It came a little late and it was a big escalation with an apathetic voter,” Rodriguez said. “Politics is all about money and timing – both the amount of time and being there at the right time.”
The Democratic strategist said Mahan’s priorities, such as housing and homelessness improvements he oversaw in San José, had an impact on the campaign.
“Democrats need to perform, and if we’re going to perform, we need to get results,” he said.
The only other candidate to see seven figures in independent spending was Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News commentator who is backed by Trump and is the GOP’s leading candidate in the race. More than $1.8 million was spent against Hilton and more than $13,750 was spent supporting her.
SEIU donated $250,000 to opposing California gubernatorial candidates. Oscar Lopez, the union’s political director, said they oppose Hilton, Mahan and Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
“Each of these candidates represents a serious threat to the wages, rights and dignity of working people in California,” Lopez said.
Hilton said the spending on him represents Democrats recognizing him as a threat.
“They know they are fragile. The Democratic machine understands that their candidates are weak and have a bad record,” he said in an interview. “They see me as an outsider and an agent of change. Their only argument – if you can call it an argument – is to keep repeating the words Trump and MAGA.”
Outside spending rose exponentially after a 2000 voter-approved California ballot measure limited how much donors could contribute directly to candidates. In the current election, that figure is $78,400 for the primary and general elections in the governor’s race.
But donors can contribute unlimited amounts to outside groups, formally called independent spending committees. Although such donations were already legal in California, they increased dramatically in the state and across the country following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which held that limits on independent political spending by corporations, unions and other organizations violated 1st Amendment free speech protections.
“There has been a steady increase in the amount of money going to outside groups,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA.
In California, independent spending groups set a record in 2010 by spending nearly $25 million to support then-gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown. The largely union money was spent the summer after the primaries and was seen as critical to halting the campaign of self-funded Republican billionaire Meg Whitman. Brown ultimately won the race by 13 percentage points.
The 2018 gubernatorial primaries broke records once again, with more than $26 million in outside spending, with former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa being the biggest beneficiary. Charter school supporters spent nearly $16 million on unsuccessful efforts to bolster his campaign.
In addition to a tremendous financial advantage over campaign committees, outside groups have the ability to make highly inflammatory hostile attacks without the candidate they support being blamed for often controversial messaging.
“IEs are free to go as negative as they want without having that negativity come back to hurt the candidate,” said Thad Kousser, a professor of political science at UC San Diego.
Although communication between candidate campaigns and independent committees is prohibited, these rules are often circumvented using legal but obvious methods. The so-called “red box” method, which Becerra implemented earlier this year, literally puts the messages campaign strategists on candidate websites want to see outside groups highlight inside red-lined boxes.
“There are technical rules that prevent certain types of communication, but it’s easy enough to communicate in public and agree on messaging,” Hasen said.
The 2026 campaign’s biggest donors include the California Chamber of Commerce, PG&E, California Assn. Realtors, Labor Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition PAC, Pechanga Band of Indians, California Nurses Assn. and leaders or founders of companies and companies such as Meta, Google, and Uber.
Californians for the People, an outside committee that spent nearly $32.3 million opposing Steyer, is the best-funded independent spending committee this year. One of the largest donors is JOBSPAC, a group sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, which has donated nearly $11.8 million to the effort.
“CalChamber is participating in an independent spending campaign because voters deserve to know more about Mr. Steyer,” said chamber spokesman John Myers. “The policy promises will cost billions, drive investment away from California and worsen the state’s affordability crisis.”
The Pechanga Indian Band spent $1.5 million on pro-Becerra efforts.
“Secretary Becerra has stood with Indian Country for decades and understands Tribal sovereignty,” said Pechanga Chairman Mark Macarro. “He’s been there when it comes to tribal health. That experience comes from a lifetime of public service, not a checkbook.”
